Nancy on Nancy

Here's a nice little interview of Nancy by blogger Alisa M. Libby.

It's a book!

This weekend Nancy submitted the completed manuscript of Extraordinary, her new novel that's due out this fall. As is her custom, she put a whole lot of thought and work into this book, and now she's ready for some rest and relaxation.

Dickens used to get depressed after finishing a book. Nancy, not so much. Good times in our household...

ALA!

The American Library Association held its midwinter conference in Boston this year, which means we just had a busy week. We were hosting various of Nancy's writer chums, Jane Kurtz had book signings for the new American Girl launch (click through to her blog for pix), and of course there were social gatherings, not the least of which was dinner with Sibert Medal winner Tanya Lee Stone, followed by a reception for her and her fellow YALSA non-fiction honorees.

At the conference itself, friends in the form of librarians, writers, and publishing folk were thick on the ground, to the extent that it was hard to get more than two feet at a time on the conference floor. Normally this would be an opportunity to scoop up advance reader copies from the publisher booths, but Nancy only got to half of the booths she'd intended to, and I got bageled on ARCs altogether.

The best part of it all was when the weather forced us to stay home and miss the awards ceremony. That meant we could stay home in our slippers and robes, watch the webcast, express ourselves freely, and be surrounded by dear friends.

It was a very good week. Hurry back, ALA!

La théorie du moustique

Today Nancy got her copies of La théorie du moustique, the French translation of The Rules of Survival.

While the titles are wildly different -- the French translates to "The theory of the mosquito" -- one presumes that the stories are the same.

I'm hoping to test that théorie by reading the French and English side by side. The idea is to learn some French in preparation for our belated "real" honeymoon in Paris this spring.

It will be interesting when we're over there to see what sort of buzz the book is getting, in terms of shelf space and mindshare of booksellers and librarians. So far, none of Nancy's books have taken off to any great extent overseas, but there's a first time for everything...

Goodies in The Picnic Basket

Impossible was recently a featured book on Deborah Sloan's The Picnic Basket. Click through to see a series of nice rated reviews from librarians, teachers, and other readers.

Storm within the eye

You might, in a perfect world, have noticed that I've seemed lax in my blogging duties lately. There are three reasons for this:

1. Nancy hasn't had a whole lot of book-related activities lately.
2. The busy holidays have provided a distraction.
3. I have, in fact, been lax. But fear not -- the latter situation has been addressed in my 2010 resolutions.

In the midst of this lull, Nancy has been writing up a storm. Well, writing and revising, if you'd prefer to characterize it that way. Her latest work in progress is coming together as we speak, and it won't be long at all before she has a final (with an asterisk) draft.